


Phantasmagoria! Part One

by lucius_complex



Series: Phantasmagoria! [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Friendship, Greek and Roman Mythology - Freeform, Humor, M/M, Romance, Theology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:36:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an ancestral spirit forces Draco into an epically ill-equipped quest to Hades, Harry discovers that even a has-been can still be a hero, and one Malfoy always leads to another. Featuring: Lucius & Dumbledore in sarong! Disagreeable Greek gods! And onions!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings of character death, AU, comparative theology (or more accurately, comparative drunk theology) and liberal religious references which may be deemed offensive, although please blame Draco for the later. 
> 
> I feel the need to warn that the Phantasmagoria! Series contains many, many chapters (but they're short. Like cookies. I like cookies.) Also Lucius doesn't really show up until the end of Part One. Cos cookies are nice, and this fic is like a trail of crumbs.

 

Phantasmagoria!

 

Part One

_‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’_   
  


1

 

“This is Harry Potter,” murmured a voice beside him.

Harry ignored him. It was a hot day; the stupid tie was choking him to death.

 “This is Harry Potter standing in a church. This is Harry Potter standing in a church trying to scratch his butt and adjust his g-string at the same…”

“Fuck the shut up, ok.”

“This is Harry Potter, who likes to say fuck, whom I used to fuck, who is standing in a church, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here on holy Sabbath, tsk tsk.”

Harry leaned over and whispered back into Draco’s ears. “If you actually manage to irritate me more than this fucking monkey suit, which will be a record, even for you, I’ll dismantle that cross and push it so far up your ass it’ll come out of your mouth, and that’s a sin I’d rather not have on my hands on your father’s death anniversary.”

“Ardent you hear to provide me with emotional support? It’s a terrible day for me, you know.”

“I’d offer to fuck you to oblivion behind yon pillar, but I don’t think dear, departed Lucius would approve.”

Draco giggled and hid it behind his hand as some elderly old aunt swished past and glared at them. “Why Harry, are you suggestion we give our relationship another go? If so, this is a dreadful place for a proposition.”

“Draco, I’m lucky to have escaped you in this lifetime. Bloody Voldemort didn’t give me half as much trouble as you did this past half decade.”

“How else do you think I’m supposed to deal with this? I’m in a muggle church. Decked in muggle clothes. Paying respects to my closeted-for-merlin-knows-how-many-years, muggle-loving, church-going, dearly departed dad.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “So he’s always been a fucking Christian. You’ve known that for a year now. Get over it. Fuck, I hate this place.”

Draco sighed, shuffled, and looked bored. The priest droned on, waxing and remodelling Lucius’ life to heroic proportions of devoutness and sacrifice, now returned to God’s blossom, ad nauseam. To everyone’s misfortune, the speech was far longer and more vigorously pious than usual, owing to the fact that the contribution to the church coffers was far more generous than Draco- being above vulgarities of economics- had intended them to be. Not for the first time that day, Harry cursed himself for having omitted to inform the blond that the gold bars that Draco had paid the priest with were something of a rarity in muggle London.

Outside, despite the sweltering heat, ominous portends of impending bad weather were beginning to gather over the little whitewashed church. 

*

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

2

 

Harry is not a happy man these days.

For one, he had the misfortune of being considered the man who had corrupted Draco by the entire Malfoy clan and all their auxiliaries, and what a horrifyingly huge network that turned out to be. There was a Malfoy, Pseudo-Malfoy, wannabes or bootlickers in every restaurant he walked into and every Quiditch game he attended. There was a Malfoy connection in every hierarchy of every organization he joined, even the muggle ones, by some default or other. If had he thought however, that life after Draco would be become any easier, well, Harry had found himself very much mistaken.

Thus it was quite the usual sight to see him slouching around London with a certain dissatisfied mug, and picked upon by her delighted inhabitants as he went around his sundry errands.

One such establishment that Harry unavoidably had to frequent was his grocer, and the typical conversation between them usually went like this:

“Oi, its that scoundrel who left my poor godson! How dare you show your face here!”

“Good day to you too, madam shopkeeper,” Harry glowered. He yanked a couple of jars from the shelves without really looking to see what they were and grabbed a loaf of bread.

“You work of the devil! I saw you there today, pretending to be there for him! Oh I saw, you!”

“Did you enjoy the service?” Harry said politely though gritted teeth. “Pity about the thunderstorm, and the church roof caving in like that.” 

“A sign sure from the almighty above for your contaminating presence in His holy eyes!” howled the shopkeeper, getting worked up.

Harry dumped the goods on her counter. “Good god, woman, will you sell your wares already?”

“You are a sinner, you are, screwing my poor godson the wrong way and then leaving him in such a state! Tis’ you who turned him into –that-”

Harry as usual, could never keep a lid on his substantial temper. “AS I KEEP TELLING EVERY BARMY OLD BAT LIKE YOU WHO HARRASES ME, DRACO WAS QUEER BEFORE WE HOOKED UP!!” 

She stared at him, as if shocked by the suggestion that somebody like Draco could ever be queer on his own accord, then said slowly- “You leave my godson alone. He’s a good boy. He’s a poor homeless orphan, and easy to be preyed upon by likes of you.”

“Madam, your poor homeless orphan is the decadent, playboy heir to half of bloody London, and that’s theonly reason why he’s your precious, cuddly goodson!” Harry shouted, yanking open the door. “Good day!” Plaster bits and cement trickled out of the doorsill when he slammed it violently on his way out, and stalked back to his apartment with an armful of jars and flattened bread.

By the time he arrived back at his muggle apartment, there were eleven answering machine messages he'd forgotten to look at, and the smell of expired coffee pervading the house. His boots squelched even on the rug, liberally pumping out muddy street water on the sable rug Draco purchased before he moved out and likely forgotten all about. Rainwater dripped from his jacket sleeves, plastered his hair into a black skullcap, and dripped into his eyes.

He goes into the kitchen, lights a cigarette; and moves it from one corner of his mouth to the other. He shoved the jars into the nearest cabinet. The dripping bread is tossed into the garbage bag, there is no bin.

He walked into the bathroom, looking for towels, but the only ones available lied in a decomposing heap under the sink that even he knew better than to touch. The toilet paper role because a makeshift sponge for his dripping head, and got discarded into the sink along with his clothes and shoes. He stared at the mirror, picking out the bits of toilet paper that stuck in his face and hair. He knew he wasn’t very good looking, even less photogenic, and coupled with his bad temper and propensity to snap at old shopkeepers where he brought his bread, there wasn’t much to endear him to the London crowd than when he had been a gangly fresh faced lad at Hogwarts, exploring the magical world he just inherited. His nose had been broken once- by the man who’s funeral he was coerced into attending today- and Lucius was not a man to mince just words when it concerned the issue of his only son and heir declaring hat he was in love with another man.

Naturally, Draco enjoyed all the controversy, and Harry reaped all the consequences.

Their relationship had lasted all of six years, which surprised everyone- especially the people involved in it, and ended amicably enough a few months ago. Draco had screamed, shouted, cried, and threw every priceless and irreplaceable heirloom within Allohomara, but seeing that that wasn’t anymore different from one of his usual passion-spurred moments, Harry was initially inclined to think that he’d gotten off lightly.

Of course, he had to revise that opinion when a four page bill arrived for the blonde’s ‘recuperation package’ at the Germanium’s Pure-Blood Ultra Transcendence Gay Spa & Retreat- when quizzed, Draco had told him that the masseuse also specialised in crystal healing, tarot cards, and made a mean Lemongrass cocktail. 

On hindsight, Harry realised they had been steadily becoming friends all along, although with Draco, it was hard to tell what his definition of ‘friend’ was. So far he was beginning to suspect that being in a relationship with Draco was only slightly worse than being friends, especially since he still found himself running the blonde’s errands and putting up with his hysterical, larger-than-life and often irritating personality quirks.

Plus, now there was no more sex. He was really getting the shorter end of the stick here.

He shrugs and wonders idly if he should make a fresh pot of coffee or check his messages, but it all seemed so pointless, so he strips and crawls into bed instead.

He didn’t know what time the yelling at the door woke him up, but he did realise that his bed sheets needed washing when the first drawn gasp of air as he came awake left him choking in stale smoke and sweat. He yanked the untucked bedsheet out and wrapped it into a makeshift towel; it was a lot faster than hunting for a clean pair of shorts.

There was nothing in his doorway, and he was about to utter a few choice phrases when a discreet cough directed his attention below, to the snootiest looking house elf he ever saw wearing a familiar and unwelcomed silver dragon crest on his pillowcase: which was saying something, considering the amount of times he’s been to Draco’s place.

“Master Harry’s presence is commanded at once by Master Malfoy,” announced the elf as he snapped to attention, pillowcase tassels jiggling on both sides like silent chimes. 

“Is that so?” Harry drawled. “Well you can tell Master Malfoy that he can bloody sod off.”

Harry never thought he’d see the day where even a house elf would look at him as if he was something vile under their fingernails, but life apparently thought he was ripe for it, at age the tender age of twenty three.

“Master Malfoy…” the house elf actually blanched, as if it was costing him something vital to continue. “Requires your help most urgently.”

“What, did he break another nail? Brought the wrong brand of face power?”

“Stupid Harry Potter!” screamed the house elf. “You must come now, with Slinker, before its too late!”

Harry’s face darkened. “Look buddy. I’ve had a really bad day here and I’m just itching to use you as a punching bag. Now tell me what the fuck Draco wants.”

“Does Harry Potter think that Slinker will go to him unless he has no choice?” Slinker spat on the floor, indicating exactly what he thought of his master’s choice of partners.

Harry was just about to grab his scrawny neck and break it when the elf wrung his hand, then tumbled forward and bawled into the bedsheet that Harry was wrapped up in. “Master is being HAUNTED!”

“By what?” Harry asked, eyeing Slinker’s dribble snoot and tears all over his only clean bedsheet with no small amount of disgust. He had been hoping to squeeze another nights use out of it.

“A terrible ghost,” Slinker said, sniffing. “Master is beside himself.”

“Master is always beside himself,” Harry muttered with mutinous resignation. “Let me get into some clothes first.’


	3. Chapter 3

_Oh, what a bitter thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes._

 

3

In fact his ex boyfriend was not agitated, he was hysterical. Harry had to shoulder past a ring of mumbling aurors, two magical barriers, and a phalanx of bodyguards before he reached the curious sight of his ex-boyfriend shrieking himself hoarse at a bluish spectral in a coat of arms. The remains of several costly lamps and glassware lie shattered on the carpet

He nodded at an auror he remembered being vaguely acquainted with in school “Some summoning charm turned awry?”

“You’d think so, But your boy said he had nothing to do with it,” sighed the Auror.

“He’s not _my_ bloody boy,” Harry glowered.

“Yeah, whatever,” the auror said. “Take a look at your ghost here, see that?”

Harry took a proper look at the spectral. He was reminded of the Bloody Baron; they both wore the same ancient coat of arms, with thick moustaches and stern expressions. He noticed the Malfoy crest on his chest and shield.

“Did you summon this thing or not?” he shouted to Draco.

The blonde apparently had the sense to turned his shrieking to where it would achieve more leverage- or do more damage, depending on whose side one was on.

“Gods, Harry I’m being haunted!”

“I’m utterly unsympathetic. Now did you summon this thing or not?”

“No!”

“No?” Harry pressed. Beside him, he could hear the auror snort with disbelief. “Not another one of your little experiments?”

“God damnit, I said I didn’t summon the thing.” Draco snapped. “Why would I? He’s hideous! Look at that mustachio- its vile!”

“Shut up, I believe you,” Harry nudged past the ring of bodies towards the blond. “It doesn’t seem to be malicious-“

Before he could finish his sentence however, the spectral had turned towards him and brandished a gauntlet clad fist at him. His other arm clasped a spiked ball on a chain.

“I wouldn’t go any further if I was you,” the auror called out. “That’s no Hogwarts Ghost- those spikes can pierce flesh if it decides to materialise on mortal planes.”

“What is it?” Harry asked as he stepped slowly away. The ghost stilled, and his arm lowered slightly.

“Ancestral Guardian Spirit is my guess,” answered the Auror. ‘But there’s nothing we can do about this one, sorry.”

“Why not? Cant you evict or exorcise it?” Harry said, staring at the spectral. What he was told made sense, however- the light hair and moustache was a dead give away, and it was not difficult to imagine a lineage between the two.

The Auror shook his head. “Its not like a common spirit which can be banished or trapped. This one can only be ended by the person who sent it, which would be your boy, except that he’s probably forgotten how-“

“Hellooo?! Is my voice invisible? Can I not be heard? I said I didn’t summon this thing!”

“Well, somebody from your family did. So congratulations, Mister Malfoy, on procuring your very own private family ghost.” The Auror said briskly. “Sorry we cant be more help, but this is essentially a private affair and doesn’t come under any public jurisdiction. Lets go, fellas. Good day, Potter. Malfoy, enjoy your ghost.”

Harry watched grimly as the Head Auror marched his officers though the door. “Fucking useless civil servants- and they wonder why I don’t want to join them.”

“So what are we going to do?” Draco said. “I can’t go around with a dead great-great-grandfather following me everywhere!”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “ _We_?”

“Are you going to leave me like this after six years together, sharing every joy and misery-‘

‘I don’t recall you sharing in any of my miseries,” Harry pointed out. “And I’m joking- you know that, you prat.’

‘You always had the most atrocious timing,’ Draco sniffed, calming down at last. ‘Dear god, I think my fringe just came apart again. Slinker! Where is that beastly house elf?’

‘Right. I’ll be leaving now,’ Harry told him, and turned around.

‘What? NO! You cant leave me alone with some medieval tin can- one could get Tetanus from being around all that foil, not to mention how dreadfully out of fashioned a tin uniform-‘

Harry turned around again to glower at Draco, who had struck up some tragic, brat-like pose.

‘I’m not leaving you alone, Draco, I’m leaving you in the loving care of your great great great grandfather. No doubt you’ll have plenty of catching up to do, seeing as you both never met in yours or his life till now.’

‘But what will I do with him?’

‘Give him the five cents tour of your dungeons, no doubt he’ll be happy to remember the many nostalgic hours he whiled away, beheading pheasants and such. So ta. I’m off. Plenty to do, you know.’

‘But Harry!’

‘Tomorrow!’ Harry lied as he sprinted out of the hall. ‘I promise!’

To his credit, the Gryffindor only broke into laughter after he left the manor.

*

‘There’s justice in this world after all,’ Harry said a few days later as he sat across a scowling Draco with a open bottled of cold butterbeer. He was quite contented with the status, even though it was a strain to hear what the blond was muttering about under his breath from the opposite side of the room. It wasn’t his fault Draco’s pet spirit was a tad possessive about personal space.

After a lengthy hole-up in the very dusty and long-languishing Malfoy library, its youthful owner not one entirely enamoured of reading of any sort- they’d managed to find a picture of the ancient spectral in one of the painstakingly detailed records on family lineage, who turned out to be a great great great great grand uncle of Draco’s. He went by the name of Dempsey, which was not been surprise. He was also a Knight of the Crusade, which was an unpleasant shock for poor Draco .

‘Famed for his penchant for beheading pagans. Capital.’ Harry had said sourly.

‘Why am I doomed to be surrounded by that most _plebeian_ of religions, Christianity?’ Draco wailed.

‘Who cares? The man’s been dead for a thousand years.’

‘The Holy See is a muggle!’ Draco howled. ‘It’s god damm muggle worship! Its not proper Malfoy worship!’

‘The only proper worship being your own damn inbred selves?’

Draco had stalked off, muttering to himself about blood traitors and changing his last name.

So now here Harry was again, days later, still stuck in Malfoy manor keeping his rather irritating ex-boyfriend company while he ranted and whined and ate pineapple-tart fillings, dropping pastry shells everywhere for Harry to step on. He was coming to see that breaking up with Draco had nothing to do with how much he would still remain in one’s life. There were days when he wondered if there was any difference

Of course, he also pointedly ignored the internal voice that reminded him that the free meals and clean bed sheets that came with being a guest at the Manor was nothing to thumb his nose at either, considering the less than pleasant conditions of his own abode.

Harry followed the trail of pastry shells to the drawing room, where Draco was dictating his will to a rather harassed lawyer.

‘I want Black Forest Callas for the dais, not bloody lilies; I don’t _care_ if they’re not in season.’

‘What in blaze are you shimmering on about now?’

‘I’m preparing for my funeral, seeing nobody cares anymore that I live or die, and its only a matter of time before that walking tin dispatches me to Hell- thank you fucking much, father dearest-‘

‘What do you think his rationale is?’ Harry interrupted him mid-rant.

‘Who could phantom his pure-blood drivel in life, much less whatever obscure message he was trying to send from the bowels of _hell_ -‘

Draco’s pacing took him a little too close to Harry, and they suddenly found a broad sword brandished between them. ‘You see? It wont let anyone come near me!” Draco cried. Then when the thought struck him, it rose into a shriek- ‘My God, I’ll never have _sex_ again!’

‘Didn’t you floo Snape yesterday? What did he say?’

The blond threw himself into an armchair. ‘Not much. By the time the old man was done laughing, he was quite out of breath. We’re to drop by tomorrow with Sir Ectoplasm in tow for a proper examination.’

‘Splendid, because I’ve spent the last eight years out of Hogwarts simply fantasizing about a reunion with Snape.’

‘Adulthood really doesn’t agree much with you, does it?’ Draco observed critically. ‘It’s like the older you grow, the longer that pole up your ass becomes...’

Harry rolled his eyes.

‘-and I think it has something to do with self-denial. Because the sad, lonely truth is…‘ Draco paused dramatically; ‘-you hate that you’re gay.’

‘Oh, that’s good. I’ve never heard that one before.’

‘You’ve never read a book or saw a show that depicted a gay superhero, and it pisses the helluva you, sugar.’

‘Go to Christian hell.’

‘I’m only saying it as someone who cares.’

‘I’m not in denial,’ Harry grated out. ‘I’m _harassed_. By you.’

Draco looked bizarrely sympathetic. ‘There, there.’

*


	4. Chapter 4

 

_‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in it’_

  
  
4

 

‘Hades?  _Hades?’_

‘Haven't you ever wondered what happened to Sirus? Your parents? Don’t you want to see them?’

‘No,’ Harry said shortly.

‘What about Dumbledore, didn’t you always  _dream_  about giving him a piece of your mind?’

“Draco- you thread on dangerous paths. I’m warning you.” Harry took a sip of his peppermint tea and grimaced. They were seated of all places, in Snape’s dank dungeons, and his stingy ex-potions professor wasn’t a man who believed in the manifold merits of alcoholic beverages. He did however, believe in overpowering tea.

Snape had thumped a dusty tome in front of them, his ink-stained fingers jabbing at a crudely drawn map. ‘The route that Aeneas used to gain entrance into Hades is located at Avernus, a crater near Cumae.’

‘I’m not goin _g_ with  _anyone_  into bloody Hades,’ Harry announced, and was naturally ignored.

‘Do you know how we might find the entrance to this cave?’ Draco asked.

‘How the hell should  _I_ know?’

Draco emptied a pill of Galeons on the knife-scarred desk.

‘There  _might_  be a potion,’ Snape said grudgingly, his eyeballs moving very rapidly across the golden pile.

Draco emptied another pile of Galeons on the table, and Snape cleared his throat.

‘The ingredients are costly and can be  _very_  rare.. even seasonal.’

The tinkle of gold coins filled the room for a good many minutes, until Snape looked almost happy. It was not in Snape’s nature to be helpful, Harry thought, but he had a dragon-like eye greed for hoarding gold. Harry suspected that the potion master’s floorboards and walls were probably crammed to the rafters with Galleons.

‘Wait here,’ the Potions Master grouched, ‘and don’t touch anything.’ He returned bearing an elaborate, rune-decorated vial, its silver stopper wrought into the finely crafted likeness a poppy. ‘Legend has it that the alchemist who stole this formulae from Pluto paid the same price as King Sisyphus,’ Snape said in an oily, covetous voice that made Harry’s hair rise on the back of his neck.

‘King  _who_?’

‘Somebody’s got syphilis, big deal,’ Draco scoffed. 'Harry’s had it umpteen times by now.’

‘Clearly, I should expect you both to know your venereal  _diseases_  more than the most basic of myths. Sisyphus was the King of Corinth, you blistering fool, cursed to an eternity of hard labour for hubris and overstepping his boundary as a mortal, and a warming to the vain struggle of man to  _seek for that which should NOT be sought_.’

‘Has the bloke met Voldermort?’ Draco asked sarcastically.

Snape looked his beaky nose down at them. ‘Should you come upon Him, you’ll find Pluto rather more partial to torture than talk. Now listen. Each additional day you spend down will leak more memories from you. Stay longer than a week, and you won’t recognise each other from Adam, much less remember the reasons for which you went.’ The Potions Master lobbed something round and rusty at Harry. ‘Consult this often: it will tell you how much time you have left.’

Harry wrestled with the clasp. There was a rusty watch on one side of the locket, and an even more rusty compass on the other.

Draco grabbed it from him and shook it. ‘Godfather, its not even working.’

‘It doesn’t work till you get to Hades, you fool. Now shut up and drink your tea,’

‘Yes sir,’ Draco mumbled, finger’s slinking back to curl like pale ferrets around his mug. Snape was probably the only person left on earth who could still speak to Draco like an errant child now that Lucius was long consigned to dust, making Harry wonder if perhaps discouraging their association had been such a good idea after all.

‘Now,’ the greasy bat cleared his throat, ‘the Inferi are relative easy to dispatch, but you’ll still have to deal with Cerberus. Whilst I won’t assume you’re bringing  _that_  Gryffindor along for any semi-intelligent reason, he might still have his uses - so I suggest your knight errant bring along his Sword of Gryffindor-‘

‘Oh, Harry brings is Sword of Gryffindor  _everywhere,_ ’ Draco chuckled.

Snape expelled a long suffering sigh and continued, ‘-you will also need to bribe for the ferryman Chauron-‘

‘ _Cerebus?_  I thought he was just a myth!’

‘I’m not signing up for zombies and rabid canine,’ Harry scowled. ‘I had enough of that in school.’

‘Fine, fine, I’ll go alone.’ Draco sounded so agreeable that Harry was immediately suspicious. ‘Is there a less hazardous way, godfather? Like a back lane perhaps-’

‘The ancient mythographers were not perfectly consistent about the geography of the afterlife. Most of them had a rather irritating habit of not coming back, for some reason,’ Snape said dryly.

‘Three-headed reasons, no doubt.’ Harry muttered.

‘If by some fool luck the both of you manage to get as far as the Fields of Asphodel, that’s where your search for Lucius will truly begin. Remember, take nothing from the land of the dead, and leave nothing but footprints. Pluto takes a  _very_  dim view of mortal tourism.’

‘Surly fella,’ Draco remarked idly as he preened his fringe. ‘He must not get a lot of sun.’

‘Just in case nobody heard me the last  _sixteeen_ times, I’m not following anybody down to Hades.’

‘Do you still have a lot to do on the surface, Potter? Last I could tell, they don’t ask much for your autograph anymore.’

‘I’ve been told that have a  _pole_  I need to remove,’ Harry said sweetly, ‘and the best time to do it is when the asshole who put it there in the first place has died.’ 

Draco jabbed his hairbrush at Harry’s chest and opened his mouth to retort, but he was interrupted by a long suffering sigh from Snape.

‘ _Spare_  me these pathetic exchanges that you pass off palavers.  _Both_  of you unmitigated assholes  _are_  going to end up at Hades at the same time anyways, so you’ll just have to help each other locate your respective assholes. How delectably ironic.’

Harry’s hand went very still on his mug. ‘What exactly are you saying, Snape?’

‘Didnt I tell you, Potter?’ Snapes voice was sweet as sugar, his expression twistedly benevolent- something so terrifying to behold even Draco blanched; ‘To enter Hades, one must first cut the mortal coil.’

Draco was still brushing his hair, as if the whole thing was beyond his grasp. ‘Did you just poison us, godfather?’

‘Only with the most expensive, untraceable, inexorable, and irreversible poison that wizarding galleons can buy,’ Snape practically purred, ‘which exist in only minute quantities in this world. The two of you should feel practically  _anointed_.’

‘What about the vial?’

‘That’s just coloured water,’ Snape shrugged elegantly. ‘It’s useless. The real deal, as they like to call it these days, was in your teapot all along.’

Like a ping pong ball, two heads shirviled from vial, to teapot, to Snapes untouched and still steaming drink.

‘You treacherous bastard,’ Harry roared, hitting the table with his fist. He felt faint, as if his knees was about to buckle under him; ‘What- what the  _fuck_  did you put in our tea?’

‘Oh, a pinch of nightshade, a measure of weeping mandrake, very expensive mind you.. and oh, abit of death.’ Snape told him pleasantly. ‘Don’t worry, you wont feel a thing.’

‘Stop your fucking excuses! I can feel the poison working!’

‘We’re dying?’ Draco stood up, looking puzzled. ‘I don’t feel anything.’

‘Sit back down, you overreacting sop. You won’t die for another 24 hours.’

‘Oh.’ Draco straightened and sank back into his chair meekly. Then he frowned. ‘but you- i’m- are you telling me we’re still going to die?’

‘Of course.’ Snape folded his arms, looking utterly bored. ‘Is that is not you came here for, after all?’

‘We didn’t ask you to KILL US IN THE PROCESS!’ Harry shouted.

‘Mister Potter, do try to concentrate on the matter at hand. You did ask me to find you the quickest means of expediting this little problem. In about nine hours, you should feel some pins and needles and experience some shedding. That is merely the potion taking effect.’

‘What sort of shedding?’ Draco asked looking very suspicious.

‘Flaky skin, hair follicle-‘

The blond Slytheri shot up like a rocket. ‘YOU DIDN’T SAY THERE’D BE SHEDDING!’

‘Sit  _down_ , Draco,’ Harry said.

‘Your own godson, Severus, how could you?’

Harry reached for his wand, only to find the greasy bat had outdrew him. For a man well past his prime, Snape’s reflexes were incredibly sharp.

‘Incidentally, I am the only one with the know how to preserve your worthless bodies whilst you gallivant around the Underworld, so have a care how you speak to me. Godson or not, you wont smell very good if I accidentally forgot to recast a charm, even by an hour or two.’

‘Sit  _down_ , Draco.’ Harry bit out.

‘The evil eye!’ Draco moaned. ‘All my beautiful hair will turn grey and fall out,’

‘I suggest then, that you complete your errands and get back into your worthless hides before that happens,’ Snape said shortly. ‘Take your bespectacled beau with you; I don’t keep vermin in my dungeons that I can’t use as potion ingredients. And you can keep your galleons.’

‘Don’t you want your reward for  _services_  rendered?’ Harry spat as he dragged the sobbing blonde towards the door.

‘I find that certain things in life, such as the privilege of watching you two numbskull cretins die to be very much its own reward.’ Snape informed them pleasantly before slamming the door in their faces. ‘But I  _do_ wish you both a good afternoon, Potter, Malfoy, seeing as it will incidentally be your last. Good day.’

*

 


	5. Lets have shmex

 

_I saw young Harry with his visor up._

 

5

 

They only had twenty-four hours before falling dead, which was not a lot of time to Draco.

‘Can you believe the  _nerve_  of that man? Telling me I won’t  _need_  hairbrush where I’m going?’

‘Draco-’

‘I’m going to have to bring my earplugs,’ the blond said. ‘You snore something terrible.’

‘Draco-.‘

‘Lets divide our duties up:  _I’ll_  pack my clothes.  _You_  can pack your clothes, fetch the sword you used to slay that big chamberpot lizard of yours in the toilet of secrets and find us some Greek coins with a hole in the middle.‘

Harry stared at him.

'Do you think it would be awfully rude to press my great great grand grand uncle into service as a pack mule?’ Draco pondered. ‘I mean, if the bloke can carry all that tin around, a couple of suit cases will barely tip the scale- WHAT?’

‘Draco, I  _said_  I’m not going.’

‘Of course you are. This is the perfect opportunity for you to shed that tired old boy-are-you-still-around and be  _boy_ , I Wana Piece Of That  _Arse_ , mm-mm.’

‘ _Oh,_  Merlin.’

‘I’ll even swoon on camera for you. I don’t do that for just anybody, you know. Just think of the headlines: ‘Harry Potter, comes  _charging_  to the rescue of childhood lover; boy hero turned manly hunk of burning flesh-‘

‘Of _all_  the ludicrous-‘

‘Come up with your own sound bites then, smart-ass.’

‘SHUT UP AND LET ME THINK!’

Draco stared at him. ‘You’re going to  _die_ anyway. You  _have_  to end up in Hades, so you might as well help me find my father and persuade him to banish this bloody baby sitter.’

‘How-‘ Harry broke off and pinched his nose, feeling the first stirring of a migraine. ‘How do we even know your father’s the one who siced him on you?’

A needle-sharp brow arched. ‘Nobody else would be such a fucking prick.’

Harry considered this. ‘True.’ In life Lucius had been foul, vindictive, and petty; no doubt death had only given him plenty of time to refine these non-virtues.

‘Where in Merlin are we going to get one of those stupid Greek coins for the ferryman?’ Draco started fretting. ‘Perhaps we should hold a press conference, ask the public for help before my hair starts shedding; god, I should hurry back and apply a conditioning tonic  _immediately_ -’

Harry sighed.

*

Four hours later, when a  _very_  exhausted Harry Potter flooed back the Manor with the Sword of Gryffindor, he found himself beset by an avalanche of photographers, and the tail end of a very theatrical, very teary-eyed press conference. The devious attention whore had apparently made good on his threat to tell the world about their ‘plight’. He’d never seen Draco so covered up since his father's funeral; he looked practically Victorian, and a velvet hat hid his hair from prying cameras. With a sense of vindictive pleasure, Harry realised that the sheding must have started - at least in Draco's fertile imagination.

His ex-lover was holding out his hand with the most woebegone expression Harry had ever seen the smarmy blond wear.   
  
‘Behold, my knight arriveths, bearing the Sword of Gryffindor as is his birth right, twice slayer of dark lords and Britain’s champion, preserver of our wizarding way of life!’

Harry winced and begun backing away from the flashing cameras.

Unfortunately the consummate Slytherin was only getting warmed up, and he rose with sudden vigor, cape sliding off his shoulders. ‘Show them your sword, Harry!’ he all but roared at the cameras. ‘Show the world how your one-eyed slumber, pleased in peace to be forgotten... only to towering rise up, a bane of evil forces-’

‘Press is over,’ Harry glowered at the cameras. ‘Clear out.’

‘Refreshments are in the adjacent room,’ Draco piped up helpfully, and artfully twirled away before Harry could turn around and tear into him.

The drawing room had rows of tables with a number of witches going through an astonishing sortie of parchments and presents;  _Volunteers,_  Draco had shrugged. Even as he continued his coquettish palaver with the camera and quick quill-laden ‘guest’, owls were pouring in through the open windows, pledging help, coinage, reference books, weapons, charms, and the occasional howler, which were immediately deposited into a soundproof bag and burnt.

Idly Harry wondered how many of the howlers came from the Weasely clan.  

‘Enjoy the rest of your mad hatter tea party, because I’m going to run you over with Gryffindor’s sword when it’s over,’ he murmured with deceptive civility.

‘Oh, ye of no faith,’ Draco sighed. ‘If we don’t get our Greek coins after this, I’ll eat my hideously expensive hat.’ 

‘I’d rather have broken into the Museum of Natural History.’

‘For which you’d have to wait till dark,’ Draco pointed out archly. ‘My way is  _much_  faster.’

Sure enough by the end of the little soiree, and after the country’s best reporters had been accompanied – roaring drunk – to the door, they had amassed, true to Draco’s wily prediction, a veritable treasure trove.

‘Amazing. We actually managed to get all our gear together with hours to spare,’ Draco marveled artlessly, milking his one-uppance over Harry for all its worth.

‘Much good it will do us in Cerebus’s stomach when he eats us alive.’

The blond was still in an irritatingly exuberant mood however. ‘What shall we do to kill time until the hour of death arrive? Shall I condition your hair for you?’

Harry patted the sword on his hip warningly, and the blond’s face fell.

‘Indoor racing? Leap frog? Exploding Snap?’

The dark-haired man eyed the table, considering sweeping its contents off in a dramatic and ultimately self-defeating gesture of bad temper. He pointed at a bottle of Firewhiskey instead.  
  
'Delightful!' Draco cried, clapping his hands. 'Inspired!'  
  
'Thank god you're reasonable for once,' Harry exhaled. 

‘I know! I love Spin The Bottle too!’  
  
The boy who lived looked at his watch. He couldn't  _wait_ to die. 

*

Harry was blitzed, and Draco was blitzed  _and_  horny.

‘I’m horny,’ Draco announced. ‘Lets have shmex. Sheks. Shex.’

‘Am not intrest-ed. Yerre rubbish in bhed.’ Harry slurred.

‘But I  _want_  some.’ Draco whined. ‘We’re going to be  _dead_  in sixty odd minutes.’

‘Go ‘way and lemme die in pieces.’

Instead he found that Draco crawled over him and tucked his hands inside his shirt.

‘Your hands are clammy,’ Harry complained. ‘Gerrof!’

‘Haaaarrrrry,’

‘Now you just sound like Ron, so plee-‘

He didn’t get to finish his sentence because something with the sharp, biting consistency of an ice suddenly went through his gut. He was conscious again a few minutes later, with his legs tangled over the remains of a once dainty tea table and the fringes of a carpet in his mouth, dripping with something uncomfortably like slushed ice.

‘Sorry,’ Draco called out sheepishly. ‘I forgot about Gramps.’

‘Tell your uncle to keep his bloody ectoplasm to himself.’ Harry said through chattering teeth.

‘Do you ever feel afraid?’ The brat’s voice was suddenly, uncharacteristically quite.

‘What are you so afraid of? We’re wizards, and as Snape said, as long as we have our wands, we’re  _fine._ ’

‘I meant about  _dying_ , oh obtuse one.’

‘Hmm,’ Harry folded his hands behind his head and gazed up at the fat cherubs floating languidly across the enchanted Rococo ceiling and considered the question.

Dying. Death. Atonement and heaven. He didn’t believe in them, not by a long shot; and the judgement of gods was something he viewed with suspicion and resentment. Perhaps he did not see himself deserving, perhaps his beliefs were coloured more by vague shame than true conviction. Even with their impending sojourn unto death, Harry found himself detached, and he viewed his own dispassion as morose and regrettable, but realistic.

‘All my life, I’ve been hounded by the shadow of death. It gets a bit old.’

‘Dying feels lonely,’ Draco complained. ‘I don’t like feeling alone.’

‘I’m here,’ Harry told him quietly. ‘You won’t be alone.’

Draco’s eyes were very bright even through the veil of his alcoholic daze – shinning with something suspiciously like tears.

‘My hero.’

‘You’re welcomed. I hate your father.’

‘Congratulations,’ the blond yawned. ‘You do share something in common with the Wizarding world after all, like you’ve always wanted. Your life is complete.’

Harry looked at Draco, deceptively innocent in his repose, or perhaps he really was in his own way, a child-like ingénue. Many years ago he had been lured by Draco’s passionate response to everything around him, his outrageous declarations, his utterly confident flaunting of the common rules of proprietary. It always seemed that for all his flaws, Draco  _lived_ , and lived much better; more richly, with passion and sound and thunder, whereas Harry merely drifted by, vaguely envious and burdened by an unknowing sense of loss. 

‘Drake? You turned out well, all things considering.’

‘Of course.’ The blond laughed sleepily. ‘Y _ou_  didn’t.’

Harry snorted.

‘Nggh turned out terrible,’ the blond sniffed on, pompous even in sleep. ‘-do zzomething… with dact  _hair_ -‘

‘We can’t all be blond popinjays.’

‘-ant you need somebod… ngggt to fuck.’

Harry chucked darkly, shutting his own eyes against the sweet, almost irresistible drowsiness that suddenly assailed him. ‘Too right.’

‘To  _love_ ,’ Draco mumbled. ‘yu need to ..learn how-’ a deep snore; ‘ _-love_.’

Green eyes flew opened as if flayed, and for a brief moment, a flood of profound sadness tugged at Harry; drew the breath from his lungs. He fought briefly, trying to identify its direction-  then surrendered to the inexorable pull of sleep.

They slumbered.

*


	6. Chapter 6

 

_Harry, the voice called to him._

_Harry_ , the way it was whispered, his name; made him feel as if he was about to break into pieces. The way he was being called with so much longing;  _Harry-_

‘Oi! Wake up, Potter!’

‘Kick me again,’ Harry mumbled as he opened one bleary eye, ‘and I’ll remove your ankle bone with the blunt edge of my wand.’

‘At this point, I’d rather you just kill me and be done with!’

There was a edge of hysteria in his companions voice that made Harry decide reluctantly that is really was time to rise. He sighed. It had been  _such_ a beautiful dream.

‘What is it now?’ 

Draco was standing over him, holding his wand out. ‘It doesn’t work.’

‘What?’

‘Our  _wands_ ,’ Draco said flatly. ‘Apparently, our most esteemed Potions Master neglected to mention that our kind of magic doesn’t operate in the Underworld.’

‘And you’re yelling because?’

‘Because it means we’ve turned into SQUIBS!’ Draco shouted, then turned tailed and trampled down a path, liberally kicking up an avalanche of pebbles. 

Harry listened to the colourful fragments of Draco’s wishing all sorts of venereal diseases on his father – adding quite a few choice epithets that he thought the blond omitted. Then he pointed his wand at a pebble – there seemed to be nothing around except rocks – and whispered ‘wingardium leviosa.’

Nothing. The wand felt like a pencil in his hands, utterly unresponsive. Wondering why he wasn’t in the least surprised at this latest development, Harry got up with a long suffering sigh and examined their surroundings. 

They were in a subterranean network: surprise surprise. The vista was cave-like, but with roofs soaring so high above Harry that he experienced no sense of claustrophobia. The air was clean and cool, although as dry as sand, and irritated his throat. Harry realized that he was dying of thirst. Without magic however, he had no idea how they would now locate water. 

Or anything else, for that matter. 

He picked up his knapsack and followed the small path down to where Draco was leafing with increasing anxiety through one of the numerous books he had brought along.

‘Did you find anything?’

The frustrated blond hurled the tome away. ‘Nothing. No references, no warnings- arrrrgh these pompous academic arseholes-‘

‘Let’s go then.’

‘Go where? We have no magic, we’re doomed!’

‘Suit yourself,’ Harry shrugged, and strolled past him.

After a couple of minutes, the blond caught up with him. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We walk until we come to water.’ Harry said simply. ‘I’m thirsty.’

Draco looked homicidal. ‘That’s it?! That’s the extent of your plan?’

‘Also, Styx is a river. If we find Styx, we’ll find the ferryman. Who’ll take us into Hades. Do you still have those doughnut shaped coins?’

The blond nodded, and looked much happier. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

Five minutes later he looked at Harry and said: ‘I’m hungry.’

Ten minutes later: ‘I’ve never missed breakfast in my life.’

They trudged on.

Two hour later: ‘We could eat the rocks,’ Draco said miserably. ‘And just pretend they’re badly transfigured peas.’

‘I did remember telling you we should have bought supplies,’ Harry reminded him.

‘Shut it,’ Draco spat. ‘Its all Snape’s fault.’

Harry didn’t bother to reply.

 

*

 

It started as a sense of unease that quickly grew into a tense foreboding, a sense of being watched.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Harry said quietly. 

Draco’s laugh was a dry rasp. ‘You mean besides the lack of food and the fact we’re both about to fall down dead from thirst?’  

The dark-haired man fingered the sword on his hip restlessly. ‘Why don’t you let me go first?’ 

The blond shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I don’t hear a thing.’ 

‘Except for your stomach.’ 

Draco’s face took on a heated expression, but before he could reply, the sound of gravel crunching alerted them to an encroaching presence. 

‘Maybe they’ll have food with them.’  

‘It’s not human,’ Harry said tensely. ‘Too close to the ground.’ 

‘Then maybe it can be eaten,’ Draco said hopefully. 

Then they heard a low, blood-curling growl from the rocks. 

‘Or not,’ Harry said. ‘Get behind me and get ready to run.’ The blond nodded and sprinted away as Harry drew the sword of Gryffindor, its blade rang with a joyous sort of hymm as he freed it from its scabbard. 

The song of the sword inflamed the creature, which finally jumped into view with a terrible growl of rage. It was a three-headed hound, ghastly of countenance, with eyes that possessed little sanity. It’s massive girth could have rivaled a small dragon, and the fangs on each head was curved like tusk. Harry immediately discerned that the monster’s shaggy hide would be difficult to hack through.   

Rather than fear, an exultant feeling overcame him as he advanced against the drooling monster. 

‘Fluffy,’ Draco whimpered behind him, ‘N-nice Fluffy.’

The monster roared its mad challenge and came forward, his toenails scratching the rocks. Harry raised his sword and swung it in an experimental arc – he probably had one good hit on one of the dog heads before another one ripped into him.  

Behind him, Draco suddenly screamed, and Harry panicked for a moment, thinking that another of these hideous hell-hounds had creeped up behind them. Then a blur of blue and black brushed past him like a silken wind, and Harry almost dropped his sword as he saw a young butterfly-winged boy imposing his small body between Harry and the three-headed hell hound. His indigo eyes matched the markings on his powdered black wings, and the boy’s face was beautiful of countenance, all ivory limbs and dark curls.  

‘Be thou’st gone, Cerebus,’ the little boy thrilled fearlessly at the dog, gesturing almost imperiously with the bunch of poppies he carried in his hands. Cerebus however, howled his wrath and paddled ever closer, albeit with new wariness.   

‘Run, boy!’ Harry shouted, but the child merely laughed at him, and unfurling his inky wings, flew above and beyond Cerebus’ three snapping jaws. He shook his bunch of poppies over each of the three heads, and one by one they dropped into deep asleep.  

‘Are you all right?’ Harry asked the fey child when he landed beside them. 

‘Thou’st meant to protect me,’ said the boy, all bemused. ‘Nobody hast tried to save me before.’ 

Harry wondered how to reply that. There was an ethereal sort of intelligence in his doe-like eyes, but he could be speaking to a ghost, a projection, or a monster in disguise- to find a young child wondering the wild caverns of Hades, well beyond the jurisdiction of Pluto’s realm, smacked of suspicion, not to mention that the boy was obviously not as harmless as he looked. 

‘Very handy flowers you have there,’ Draco observed faintly as he watched the poppies stir and wave like sleepy snakes. Harry found something vaguely ominous about the way the drowsy heads resembled tiny pools of blood. 

A fond look stole over the boy’s face. ‘My brother is most gifted, and such blooms are beloved to him.’ 

‘What are you doing so far away from your-‘ Harry had almost said  _parents_ ; ‘-er, home?’ 

‘The same may be asked of thee, strange mortals.’ 

‘We seek the gates into Pluto’s realm. Can you tell us how to get there?’ 

‘What business seek you?’ 

‘None of  _your_ business, that’s for sure,’ Harry told him curtly.  

‘Follow you the earthly song onto beckoning streams of silver Styx.’ A faraway look suddenly came over the boy’s countenance. ‘I must away, for my brother stirs from slumber. Farewell.’ The child propelled his beating wings past the massive stalactites and disappeared, leaving his audience gaping after him.  

‘What the blaze was he talking about?’ Draco scowled.  

‘Let’s go,’ Harry said curtly. ‘We have a river to find.’ 

They continued walking. The small pebbles gradually gave way to much larger boulders that the two men had to navigate gingerly in zigzagging paths.  

Harry glanced irritably at his blond companion, which seemed to have discovered a second wind and was moving rapidly and gracefully across the treacherous stones; spry as a bloody mountain goat, whilst Harry himself stumbled and stubbed every toe on both foot.  

‘It’s the dammed  _sword_ that’s keeping me off balanced,’ he snapped at one of Draco’s more infuriating smirks.  

‘Whatever you say,  _hero_.’

‘ _Fuck_  off.’ 

‘Lucky that wee slip of a child came by and saved us before you tripped over your sword.’ 

‘Oh yeah? Well, don’t expect salvation to flutter by on butterfly wings every time we run into a new monster. And we  _will_ run into new monsters.’ 

‘If that’s just a taste of what’s about to come,’ Draco sniffed, ‘I suggest we turn tails and go home.’ 

Harry turned on him, eyes blazing, and the blond begun to inch away. 

‘Now Harry,  _do_  remember that you’re still waving that huge sword about.’ 

‘Not so circumspect about your little pet now, are you, now that’s its TOO BLOODY LATE TO TURN BACK!!’ 

‘I’ll go scout on ahead first, shall I?’ Draco stammered, and fled. 

Cursing, Harry sheathed his sword and sat on a rock to shake out the loose pebbles in his shoes. Draco was nowhere in sight by the time he looked up. 

‘Draco? Don’t wander too far off Draco! Confound it, where is that blasted blond?’ 

‘ _Here_ ,’ a muffled voice drifted towards him, accompanied by the unmistable round of running water. Harry’s heart gave a leap as he hurried over – at last an end, perhaps, to their mindless, rather painful walk.  

‘Don’t run off again, you prat.’ 

Draco didn’t seem to hear him. ‘Behold vile Styx, the river of hate,’ he said softly as Harry finally caught up; the melancholy in his voice an echo of the mournful sound of roiling waters below. ‘We’ve found it: the Mouth of Hades.’

 

*

 


	7. Adventures of J’arry Potter

 

 

7

 

The river Styx was so wide that it took some time for Harry to wrap his head around it being a river to begin with.  The molten silver waters seemed to stretch on forever, glittering like reversed stars against the earthy, subterranean roof above them, and resulting in a dizzy sense of being suspended upside down from the skies.

On the glimmering horizon, they made out the blinking lights of distant ferries, manned by unimaginable things. There was no sign of a shore.

‘I guess swimming’s been taken out of the itinerary,’ Draco commented dryly. ‘Pity, I did so hope to get a dip.’

‘You better hope the water’s drinkable, or we’ll both die of thirst in a day or two,’ Harry said brusquely. The exertions of the day had left his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and the little moisture that remained in his throat felt thick and irritable. ‘Come on.’

Gingerly the companions made their way to the water in fits and starts, sending volleys of pebbles down to the shore as they made their descent. Harry’s heart sank as he searched furtively for any signs of plant life, which might have meant that the river waters were safe to consume. 

Draco’s arm suddenly shot out and pulled him behind some rocks. ‘Someone’s coming.’

Harry cocked his head and listened to the faint sound of muttering that grew into a belligerent monologue. Then a man came into view, wearing bunch of rags that seemed to be shedding in little bits and pieces around him as he walked. He came to a stop directly in front of them, eyes roving blindly over the rocks.    


‘I ken smell a foul surface stench! Who be you, then? Mighty chary, loitering about in the shadows. Show yourselves!’

Taking a gamble on his instincts, Harry pushed himself from the rocks and stood up, yanking Draco along. ‘Just two weary travelers. We don’t mean any harm.’

‘Harm  _me?_  Harm the Dreadful Ferryman of Hades?  The stranger laughed derisively at his proclamation. With his sour mein and long, shaggy hair he looked like a possible long dead relation of Filtch’s. ‘What be your name then, fearless one?’

‘Harry Potter.'

The ferryman looked him up and down. ‘Dead already eh? Lost the fight? Yarg, didn’t think you’d make it anyways. Yer shorter than I expected.’

‘What about me?’ The blond pressed, then at the blank look pointed at himself. ‘I’m Draco Malfoy, the spy who turned the tide- order of Merlin, second class?’

‘Never heard of you,’ Chauron said dismissively.

‘Yet you know  _Harry Potter._ ’ Draco said, looking disgruntled. ‘Why am I not one bit surprised.’

‘In the good old days, heroes were a dime a dozen. Passionate! Willing to die for a cause! That’s what it’s all about,’ Chauron roared, glaring at Harry as if it was all his fault. ‘Now, we’re lucky to get one miserable man every hundred years, countin more on nerdy luck than muscles! Weak, the lota you. Look at that’

‘Ow!’ Draco shrieked. ‘Stop poking me!’

‘All bones and ribs, ye’all are, useless!’

‘Uh, Chauron, what we came here for-‘

‘My name is Kharon! Kharon! Spelt with a bloody K!’

‘Oh for the love of-  _does_  it really matter?’

‘How’d  _you_  like it if the world started calling you J’arry?

‘Point taken,’ Harry said, wincing as Draco burst into laughter.

‘I suppose you’ll be wantin’ to cross her then, hur? The big bad Styx.’

Harry nodded. ‘We can pay.’

‘Forty-five dollars,’ the ferryman grunted. ‘All major currencies accepted, no barter, and NO bloody credit cards!’

‘That’s highway robbery.’

‘Haven’t you heard of inflation before?’

‘We have something even better,’ Draco said smugly as he fished out his coins. ‘I think you’ll find this quite familiar. ’

‘What’s  _this_  rot then? An obolus! By Pluto’s chin, I’ve not seen the likes of that for five thousand years,’ Khauron marveled. ‘Where in the Upper Realms did you manage to find one?’

Draco puffed up his chest and opened his mouth to explain.

‘Brings back memories, it does, but honestly, this isn’t worth a donkey’s ass.’ Khaoron shuddered. ‘Used to have to row by hand, in those days. Took me forever to get one bloody load of these buggers across.’

‘Surely you can smuggle us on board..’

‘No money, no ticket. No ticket, no ferry.’ Kharon gave them a hard look, and relented. ‘Well, me’s not talked to a hero in tenscore years, and doubt there’d be one hurryin along anytime soon. You can use me old boat, quiet-like, yer ken? Don’t use it anymore now that we have the ferries- she’s tethered yonder.’ He nodded at the pier.

‘So much for your obolus,’ Harry said dryly to a deeply chagrined Draco.

‘A word of caution to yeh: if one drop of river water from the Stxy lands in your mouth, you’ll be mute for nine years. Not a sound!’ Khauron warned. ‘And she likes to play with her food, Stxyie does. Yer been warned!’

Draco, who had been peering with great interest at the whispering waters, started backing away. ‘Did you say Stxyie likes to  _eat_ people?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But-‘

‘Its complicated,’ the ferryman said firmly as he turned away. ‘Yer been warned!’

‘I really don’t like this,’ Draco complained. ‘Everything in this realm wants to eat us.’

‘Thank you, Kharon, we wont forget this.’ Harry said warmly.

The ferryman looked embarrassed. ‘Yarhg, be off with you. And mind you get those stupid scholars to change my name when you get back to the surface!’

*

It turned out to be a rickety old rowboat, its boards cracked and wrapped with age.

Luckily it floated – if a little shakily, and barely kept the waters of the river by the time the two men got into it. As was the natural order of things, Harry found himself doing all the rowing, while Draco did all the complaining.

‘Really, what was Godfather thinking, sending us down here with so much misinformation.’

Harry looked longingly at the brackish waters. He knew quite a few people who’s voice he didn’t mind not hearing for nine years or so, Draco and that bastard Snape being two that topped his list. 

They both looked up as a giant ferry past them, her passengers waving merrily.

‘Evil man, that Khauron,’ Draco observed. ‘He should change his name to Sauron.’

‘You read too much,’ Harry told him sourly. His shoulders were beginning to burn from the effort of rowing.

Draco eyed the lip of the boat as the splashes of the rock ‘Don’t make such a big splash. And your rowing is so uneven that you keep meandering us to the left.’

‘Would  _you_  like to row this thing?’

‘Point taken.’

They both lapsed into brooding silence after that, one that became more and more oppressive and Harry found himself glaring venomously at the blond as a litany of past hurts and grudges paraded through his brain. This was all the stupid blonds’ fault.

The more he rowed, the more Harry’s anger seemed to choke him, coiling around his heart. His heartbeat hammered in his ears, going faster and faster. Across the boat, Draco’s face was purple with ugliness, and he seemed to be breathing faster as well. Well, his Highness had no right to be angry. No right at  _all._ He was nothing but a treacherous, manipulative, leaching little  _snake-_

It was almost as if Draco could read his every thought, because the blond suddenly burst out, ‘Oh,  _you’re_ so full of self-righteous SHIT! You’ve got righteous shit pouring out of every ORIFICE-‘

Harry’s mouth went on autopilot. ‘You did nothing but USE me for seven fucking years! You turned me into your errand boy, your punching bag, your fucking piggy backride-‘

‘I’ll give you what I think you’re worth! In this case nothing!'

Maybe if you’ve given me a little sympathy instead of being the self-absorbed little prick you are-‘

‘Maybe your muggle relatives had it right after all, eh? Freak show!!’

‘You  _and_  your bloody father have taken turns to broke my nose, is that some sick sort of Slytherin tag game, huh? Malfoy method of family bonding?’

‘If you hadn’t incited him with all your sardonic commentary, he wouldn’t have! Its your own bloody fault! You destroy everything with your own hands Potter, it was you all along, so don’t blame anybody else! People _die_ because of you, remember?’

‘You selfish, spoilt, whore!’ Harry almost screamed, abandoning his oars and standing up abruptly. ‘Say that again and I’ll run you over with Gryffindor’s sword!’

Draco pitched forward and grabbed his shirt. ‘ _Do_ it, your bloody coward! It’s the route you always take! The _great_  Harry Potter: what a self-pitying, washed-out has been  _he_  turned out to be-‘

‘NOTHING but  _fucking_  hubris-, Harry roared back at him, and they ended up grappling like two rowdy sailors, snarling and spitting

Harry’s thoughts because so incensed that he could not hold a coherent thought, beyond a sudden, fiendish need to hold that smarmy, hateful blood under the water and watch him drown.

Draco had lunged for one of the oars which Harry intercepted and kicked into the water. Overcome by the violent motion the blond pitched into the river with an outraged scream. His pale, scrawny arms scrambled for the boat almost immediately, and Harry lifted a booted foot to smash on his fingers, but Draco hurled all his weight against the side he was grasping on and with a triumphant cry, and capsized the little boat.

The water was as roiling as Harry went under, singing in his hearts and egging him on his homicidal mission. It was only the silver glint of the sword of Griffindor by his side that finally caught his eye as he flailed in the water, looking for Draco, and for one brief moment, the blind anger blanked out, leaving him slightly confused.

Through the haze of rage a nagging surface memory tugged at him, and he kicked desperately to the surface and tugged Draco to his chest, where hence the blond immediately wound his hands around his neck and begun to choke.

‘Draco, it’s the river!’ Harry shouted, shaking him. ‘Styx is the river of hate. Let go of your anger, or you’ll drown!

‘Draco!’ The blue eyes were still unseeing, so he shook him again, and held him above the water. ‘Think of your parents. Think of Malfoy Manor. Think of all the things you didn’t get to say to Lucius.’

The waves crashed tumultuously around them, and Harry clammed a hand over his companion’s mouth to keep the river waters from entering. ‘I  _love_  you, you  _bloody_  shit,’ he roared. ‘And I’m stuck in fucking Hades because of you, so you better not die on me or resurrect both you  _and_  your useless father and de-’

The blond gasped suddenly and clutched at him. His blue lips worked soundlessly for several  moments before he spoke.

‘Yo-you don’t have the brains to resurrect inferi-‘

Harry was thankful for his tight grip on him, because, a wave suddenly rolled them to the shore tumbling them both unceremoniously on the pebbly shore and retreating sullenly back into the river.

For blessed knew how long, Harry couldn’t bring himself to move a finger. All emotions had drained out of him, left him weak and exposed. When he finally hauled himself to Draco’s side, the blond’s eyes were closed, and his features were set in a rare expression of neutrality that made him look almost peaceful.

‘Those things I said in the boat,’ Harry aid tentatively, ‘I didn’t mean it.’

‘I know,’ the blond said tiredly as his sky-blue eyes blinked open. ‘I’m sorry too.’

‘Friends?’

 _‘Never,’_  Draco said flatly and with so much finality that Harry thought his heart had sank under the waters of hated Stxy with Kharon’s boat.

Then he felt his hand clasped by cold, shivering fingers. ‘You’ll always be more than that.’

‘Wanker,’ Harry said fondly. Then he smiled.  
  
*


	8. Chapter 8

 

8

All things considering, they found the entrance to Hades quite easily after that, although by then, Harry was the one who carrying both backpacks and pushing Draco along. Great grand uncle apparently, was only interested in manifesting in the flesh when it involved fighting as opposed to the distribution of supplies.

 

He  _was_  the one who located the gateway for them, however, so Harry decided to keep his grudges for other, less profitable days. They’d discovered, quite by accident, that Draco could actually order his bodyguard spectral around. Sometimes. Usually not.

 

‘My lord, what a circus,’ Draco observed, boggle-eyed as they watched the miles-long que of departed souls wind all over the riverbanks. ‘We’ll be here for  _weeks_.’

 

‘Do you really intend to join that line? What sort of Slytherin are you, anyways?’

 

Draco grinned. ‘Lets go cut queue.’

 

A lot of the dead had confused, clueless looks on their faces as they shuffled along, but here and there a few belligerent scuffles broke out, and were quickly arrested and carted away – straight through the gates of Hades, Harry noted. Cutting through weeks of queuing.

 

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

 

‘Better to create a commotion and get thrown into jail,’ Harry nodded, ‘We just need to figure out a way.’

 

‘I’ll take care off it.’ Draco drew himself up. ‘Its time I did  _my_  part for our quest.’

 

‘How?’ Harry frowned. 

 

‘Like this,’ Draco said pleasantly, and punched him in the face.

 

*

 

It turned into a  _much_  bigger brawl than both of them anticipated.

 

Harry had retaliated as soon as he recovered from the utter shock that the unmitigated blond bastard had broken his nose  _again_ , but the fountain of blood that spouted out had gotten into his eyes, severely impairing his vision. He ended up socking one of the guards, who crashed into the line of dead spirits. Once that happened, it set off a chain reaction that nobody could have projected, although they both blamed each other for its aftermath whenever the conversation cropped up.

 

The sluggish, trudging lines of the dead seemed to glimmer, their sleepy expressions vanished; their eyes opened wide, and their mouths opened to scream in fear, rage and denial. A wave of sudden mass hysteria bubbled up amongst them like a mindless, undulating worm as they looked around in shock and started to scream and babble in a cacophony of different dialects and languages.

 

Pandemonium ruled to such an extent that Harry found himself carried away by a time of bodies, shouting Draco’s name and trying not to get trampled underfoot. Nobody noticed the horn-crossed gates of Hades give way with a groan. But the moment a chariot of nightmarish design clattered forward, its mechanical horses breathing fire and smoke, and an entourage of stern-faced guards flanked out behind it, Harry could feel a sudden electric change in the air, a ghastly awe rippling through the crowd.   
  
For the chariot’s rider, although of human countenance, radiated the undeniable aura of godhood, pulsating, relentless and rendering. Harry caught Draco’s eyes- wide with terror, and suddenly understood that none other than Dread Pluto stood before them, and his brain was almost undone by the knowledge.

 

‘Hypnos,’ the god summoned in a terrible voice. ‘Thy talent is called for to soothe this unseemly fracas.’

 

A small boy came forth from the retinue, and where his naked foot threads the air, a large poppy flower bloomed, red and virulent as if his feet spurned the very air. His head was crowned with poppies, and his hair and skin was as alabaster. His great beauty was tempered only by the chilling absence of pupils in his eyes.

 

He blew gently upon an upturned palm, sending a whirl of black speckles to dance in the wind, falling into everyone’s eyes, sparing only the mortal pair. The ghosts dropped like flies, not one escaping the frightening efficiency of the child-god’s poppy seeds.

 

Then he turned to the guards of the gate.

 

‘Thy duties were poorly discharged.’ He spoke in a choirboy’s contralto voice, a soft and deadly hymn that Harry would have turned around and ran from, had he not been almost sick with dread.

 

The boy waved one pale hand in a complex gesture, and from the sky a gentle patter of scarlet petals fell. The guards cried out in fear as they watched this, but strangely did not run, as if they knew the hopeless folly of escape.

 

But their graceful descent hid the awful intent behind them, and Harry saw the tiny scarlet petals slice into the eyes of each soldier, and when the guards cried out, cut out their tongues.

 

All this the child Hypnos observed with his expressionless face, and Harry too shocked to intercede, too stricken to do anything but watch the horror around him.

 

Then the Dread God turned his eyes on him then, and Harry had never been so afraid in his life, not when Voldermort- pathetic mortal- had tried to kill him, not when he saw Ron take the killing curse.

 

‘Thou two,’ Pluto said darkly. ‘hath wroth much trouble in my kingdom.’

 

His mere presence was like a gong in his head, and the sound of his voice had Harry desperately fighting the urge to cower before it. Harry couldn’t speak, staring at the ground of blood and petals; beside him Draco was already crouched like a toad on the floor, shaking and whimpering.

 

And there was nothing in this world, or any world, that Harry hated more than absolute rule.

 

‘Thout are gravely lacking in  _respect,_ for one so young. This is the inevitable erosion of time on humanity in the lands above, but down  _here_ , fledging childe, the old ways reign.’

 

His fear and awe belied logic, rooted him in every myth, every nightmare, every fantasy and dream ever conceived by his subconscious – they seemed to come alive before him, writhling on his retinas.

 

 _‘Kneel_ , childe,’ snarled the guttural voice of the King of Hades.

 

 _‘Kneel_ , childe’ the child-deity Hypnos said in his soft, expressionless voice.

_‘Kneel,_  childe,’ the voice of the Queen of the Underworld poured upon him like a river, gentle but immovable.

 

Thus overwhelmed, his legs lost their fight, and Harry collapsed on his knees on the dirt, and bowed his head to the company of Gods before him.

   
*  
  
  



	9. Chapter 9

 

9

 

Harry blinked and tried to swat the flies away. The pesky things kept trying to land on his face-

‘Ow!’

His hand came away black and sticky with congealed blood, and Harry sat up as the pain jolted him wide awake.

‘ _Fucking-‘_

‘Sorry about your nose,’ Draco said sheepishly from the opposite corner of their cell. ‘I hadn’t intend to break it.’

‘ _Fuck._  You.’

‘Ok maybe I did. But only for the greater good.’

‘When we get back to the surface, the first thing I’m going to do is dispatch you back here. Alone. ’ Harry promised.

‘I think if we ever get back to the surface,’ Draco said softly, ‘I’m going to go to church.’

‘To revive Pluto’s church?’

The blond shook his head. ‘My father’s.’

Harry shifted, wondering if he was surprised or not. ‘Why?’

The blond gazed out onto things only he could see, his pale hands curled around one of the prison bars.

‘He took me to church once, Father. Do you know a place called Southwark, at the muggle south bank?’

‘The cathedral.’ Harry nodded. ‘I know it.’

‘He called it  _an expedition_.’ Draco laughed. ‘I was a fool.’

‘He was a master actor. You couldn’t have known.’

‘I can’t say why, but for some reason I feel that Father’s church, for all their faults…’ he trailed off, fighting with the emotions that his upbringing refused to acknowledge.

‘-has more compassion,’ Harry answered for him, although he couldn’t imagine somebody like Lucius ever wanting to bequeath or receive any form of kindness. But then, he’d always thought he knew something about the multifaceted nature of men. Perhaps… perhaps he knew less than he thought.

Draco didn’t reply, lost in his world of private regrets.

They passed the night in silence

*

They were kept cooling their heels in the tiny cell for two days. To pass the time, Harry had forced them both to recite litanies and recall their Hogwarts syllabus. As far has he could tell however, their memories remained in perfect condition.

They were also asked to fill in forms – piles of them. The underworld apparently, was as bureaucratic as it was medieval.

‘Hard for  _you?_  Its a fucking administrative nightmare for  _us_ ,’ their Guard sneered when Draco complained. ‘Do you know how many people die every  _day_?

‘What happens when you run out of space?’ Harry asked.

‘I’m not at liberty to reveal trade secrets,’ the guard had told them cryptically as he stalked off, muttering to himself.

‘The underworld must be filled to the rafters with sleepwalkers.’

‘At least now we know why they removed the trouble makers so fast,’ Draco pointed out in a reasonable voice.

‘Wonderful. Harry grunted. ‘I’m going back to sleep.’

*

‘Get up!’ the Chief Warden barked over the clanging of locks. ‘Time to go!’

Harry found himself ushered with no small urgency through a network of narrowed, low-ceiling chambers, lit by the glowing hues of Draco’s grand uncle . ‘This isn’t the way we came.’

‘Silence! ’

Harry looked around, nothing the medieval reliefs and plaques inscripted with the words ‘horned hades’.

‘Horned Hades- is that some sort of allusion to the Christian one? Satan?’

Draco rolled his eyes. ‘Noooo, it’s just the helmet Pluto wears. Didn’t you read  _any_ of the classical books?’

‘No toffee-nosed private tutors ever descended up Little Whinging, if that’s what you mean. Besides, I didn’t  _see_ any helmet.’

‘His Godship probably uses it in battle. Or to sneak around. Legend has it that it makes him invisible.’

‘That’s  _all?_ ’ Harry asked aghast as they ducked the low ceilings. ‘That’s all it does?’

Draco pursed his lips. ‘And you tell me I’m the one who’s spoilt. It didn’t occur to you all these years that an invisibility cloak is something around the magnitude of oh, national treasure?’

‘I really didn’t know,’ Harry said, embarrassed. ‘I would have taken better care of it otherwise.’

Draco snorted. ‘Likely, that.’

‘I wonder if the hole can be patched.’

‘YOU-‘

‘That cloak is  _old_ ,’ Harry said defensively. ‘-and I frequently stepped on it when I was a kid.’

Draco clamped his lips shut and refused to reply.

They were led into a corridor of wooden floors and bare paneled walls, dimly lit and slightly musty. Several staircases later, Harry found himself shoved through one of the many identical iron doors they had passed. His eyes took in the few large tables and assortment of leather backed chairs- some mismatched, strewed around the room. Whatever this room was, it was no throne room- i fact it looked very much like something one could find in the Upper Wor- back home.

A very familiar figure stepped forward to great them.

‘Welcome, mortals.’

‘You!’ Draco gasped at the slender youth, who gracefully inclined his dark head. His butterly wings were wrapped about him like an inky cloak, and his feet was bare.

‘We meet again. I am Thánatos.’

‘Oh  _puh-lease_  don’t tell us you’re a god as well,’ groaned Draco.

Harry didn’t take his eyes off Pluto. The dreadful god and his queen were ensconced at the far end of the table, glowering at them. But where was that all-encompassing aura? The palpitations that overcame him when he last beheld Pluto’s dark countenance?

Harry couldn’t figure it out.

The butterfly-winged Thánatos observed this with a placid smile. ‘You have questions.‘

‘Which my spider senses tell me the lot of you won’t bother to give proper answers to.’

‘Thoust mind is rendered by bracken, childe,’ the Queen told him. ‘Allow us to heft the boughs that doth block thy sight from truth.’

‘Who‘re you?’

You may call me Persephone.’

He thought that name sounded vaguely familiar. ‘You will answer my questions?’

‘Thoust may ask,’ was all she said.

‘Why do we feel so… different _,_  in your presence?’

‘Tis a different time.’ the Queen smiled. Harry decided she was rather condescending.

‘What do you mean to say?’ Harry pressed. ‘Was it all an illusion?’

‘This is the afterworld,’ the Queen said gently, ‘yet, is it not a false fantasy to one who does not believe?’

Harry glowered. ‘This kind of shit is too, er-’

‘Existentialist,’ Draco supplied helpfully.

‘Whatever,’ Harry glowered back. ‘Speak plainly.’

‘Ask plainly,’ laughed Thanathos.

‘Enough of this,’ Pluto said with sudden finality. ‘These mortals have small hour-glass. We should not waste their time.’ He looked at Harry ‘We are not always off a mind to rule with terror. Once we walked the lands above, and clasped some of you to our breast as brothers.’

That, Harry thought faintly to himself, was as probable as Snape giving him a hug. There was something in the God’s mannerisms of the dour, dismissive mien which reminded Harry of his greasy potions master.

‘We came here to return one of your… fellow citizens.,‘ Harry gestured at the blue spectral standing stiffly behind them. ‘As a gesture of goodwill, will you free his bonded servitude to mortal companion?’

‘I cannot,’ Hades said shortly. ‘He may only be freed by the maker of the bond.’ Dark eyes pierced Draco. ‘You think this is your father.’

Draco nodded shakily.

‘You think you will be able to find him.’

‘Ye-yes, my lord,’ Draco quavered, and Harry tried not to roll his eyes.

‘When you find your father, you shall bring him to justice,’ snarled Pluto. ‘He has broken the law. The enslavement of another soul in this realm is the prerogative of the Gods alone.’

‘But what will you do to my father?’ Draco cleared his throat. ‘Surely you can’t  _kill_ him anymore-‘

‘Oh, nothing of that sort’ Thanathos shrugged. ‘Merely warnings, perhaps a fine of sorts. Nothing more sinister than a slap on the wrist.’

‘I’m sorry your majesties, but seeing my father had converted to Christianity, shouldn’t he be excluded from your juristdiction?’

It wasn’t the right thing to say, apparently, because Pluto’s already dour countenance darkened even more.

‘That Christian God!’ he thundered. ‘The new kid on the block! Green as  _grass_ , by Zeus, but never a more disgraceful, disrespectful and delusional upsta-‘

‘Hush dear,’ his queen chided. ‘Let us keep our Godly affairs away from mortal ears, for they are much unsuited to it.’

‘ _HE_  might be making wide swaths through the muggles.  _HE_  might be building his churches all over the worlds above. But I’ve never lost a single  _wizard_ to Chris-tianity, by Zeus, and I’m not about to start.’

‘We’ve been outside the gates,’ Harry pointed out. ‘You hardly seem to be running short .’

Pluto merely glared at him, looking more like a vile toad than ever, so the butterfly-winged child god answered for him instead.

‘It’s a rather tedious story, and not a very interesting one at that. Currently the Underworld take in all the magical folk by default, but other… factions have started to cast their covetous eyes our way. They say we exploit a… loophole, because the magical world often sits astride two faiths. Your father’s case, for example, is one that was hotly disputed for some time.’

‘So you won in the end?’

‘I fear we cannot say for sure,’ Thananos sighed. ‘You know how paperwork is; no fledging, five thousand year old religion can hold no candle to fifty thousand years of bureaucracy here in Hades.’

Draco’s eyebrows had shot through his fringe. ‘ _Paperwork?’_

‘Paperwork,’ Thanathos said slyly. ‘Deary stuff, and they always have a way of getting-‘

‘Lost! ‘ Pluto roared. ‘HE’LL never find it,’ don’t know the first thing about the fine art of beraucracy, those fluffy persion cats of HIS- angels, HE calls them, hah! Grown men running around in  _diapers_ -‘

His fair queen placed a graceful hand upon her consort’s arm. ‘Perhaps the mortals would best be getting along,’ she suggested placidly.

‘Yes yes, release them. You have one week to find Lucius and deliver him to me for sentence. No lolly lagging, and think not to deliver him out of Hades, for his mortal coil has been severed, and you will only serve to far greater his suffering.’ Pluto trained his grim eyes on Harry. ‘See that you do not overstep the boundaries of my kingdom again whilst you remain here. I will not be as merciful the next time.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Harry scoffed, ‘well you can take your godly mercy and-‘

‘I’ll take care of him, your majesties, ‘Draco hurriedly cut in just as Pluto’s gaze began to narrow.

‘You are most noble, fair one.’ Queen Persephone approved.

‘T-thank you, your majesty.’

Harry watched in disgust as Draco flushed from the roots of his hair to his feet.

*

Tanathos begin to give them all sorts of warnings as he lead them out. ‘Stir up no trouble in your wanderings. Pluto’s agents are ruthless.’

‘Are you not one such agent?’ Harry challenged.

The youthful god smiled at him, his expression bemused. ‘Thoust art pert, but thy suffering is all hubris and self-imposed, young Harry Potter.’

‘YOUNG Harry Potter?!’ he almost fainted. ‘YOUNG Harry Potter!!!’

‘Thoust art a better man than the sum of thy curdling beliefs. Break free of them, and the scent of thy freedom will be sweet. Farewell, hero and crusader.’

Draco looked disgusted. ‘ _Hero?_   _Crusader?_  Has your fan base expanded to include deities now, you insufferable git?’

‘They probably call everybody that.’ Harry defended. ‘Some sort of classical reference to ancient explorers.’

‘I didn’t hear any of them calling  _me_  a crusader,’ Draco grouched.

‘Probably mistook you for the pack mule,’ Harry grinned, as he slung a companionable arm around the smaller blond.

‘Queen Persephone’s  _really_  pretty,’ Draco said with a dreamy gaze.

‘Queen Persephone.’ Harry pursed his lips. ‘Draco, are you  _sure_  you’re queer?’

The blond swatted his arm.

*

 


	10. Like being in a negroid version of New Zealand

 

10

 

Sometimes, Harry remembers how as a child he had loved the thrill of day dreaming, his seven year old brain being as imaginative as they came. Left to his solitude, he had whiled away many happy hours as a child, turning the ordinary into the magical. And so it was that the dust motes that danced in the small slips of light from under the cupboard door crack became faery people, the cobwebs around him grew into an enchanted forest; cloaked in snow; and the spiders scurrying around the cervices were once noble princes turned into hideous beasts, awaiting the day when Harry would grow up, turn against his cruel captors, and save them all.

 

When he was young, Harry remembers wanting very much to be a hero. But that was another lifetime ago, when he hadn’t yet grasped what being a hero entailed.

 

*

 

Two mortals stood outside the horned gates of Hades, gaping in supplicated awe at the new world they suddenly found themselves in. The sky of Hades was nothing they’d ever seen – nor expected before - sullen, roiling purples, streaking blues, and sinister, coiling grey. They hung low and ominous, an almost palpable witness to their wanderings. It was the landscape beyond them however, was truly awe-inspiring.

 

For they now stood at the precipice of Hades, and underworld was no mere  _cave._

 

The air was brisk and clean, the soaring blue skies above reminded Harry of a Renaissance painted ceiling. It was green place- _very_  green, and variegated with a phantasmagorical profusion of moving colors and sound, tantalizing and bewildering. The land itself was as folded as old cloth, with many hills and bumps, and everywhere tiny streams ran like rivulets upon a pane of glass, peppered with small arches of whimsical bridges. Schools of electric-colored birds flew in perfect formation over the trees, their peacock-tipped tail-feathers trailing like feather boas.

 

Even as they watched, the sky begun to change colors again, turning lighter and seeming to rise ever higher. The clouds shifted into deep plum hues, absorbing and contracting as it rose in the sky like a shedding balloon. Harry watched, amazed, as the clouds turned a candy floss pink, and stopped rising. The sun rays diffusing down upon Hades was speckled with pink, turning the whole landscape into a child-like wonderland.

 

‘Its  _beautiful_ ,’ Draco breathed; Harry could only nod dumbly. Wherever the kingdom of Hades was located, it definitely wasn’t underground. Apparently it wasn’t even on  _earth._

 

Harry tried very hard not to think about that part. The theory of alternate dimensions always made him a little queasy, even after years of wizardry.

 

He dug around for Snape’s rusty compass, fished it out, and gasped- now that they were in Hades, the pocket watch shone as if its finishing touches were only completed hours ago. Its intricate shell was burnished to a golden finish, and the clasp unlocked itself with a musical ‘ping’. The cracked glass replaced within had been replaced, its many luminescent dials and wheels whirling a merry sort of mechanical music.

 

The flourishing script on the face of the clock was unfamiliar to him.

 

‘Read this,’ he demanded, ‘and tell me which one says North.’

 

‘ _Domos… Haidou_ _,’_ _Draco read. ‘Its ancient Greek for House of Hades. You know Harry, I’m beginning to think this is not so much a compass as a map.’_

 

_Harry snatched the watch back and peered at the symbols moving around the dial. ‘It seems to work like a compass of sorts. The main arrow points pretty consistently to the Horned Gates; that’s where we are…. What does Pedion Hlusion stand for?’_

 

_‘Do I look like a walking translating charm to you?’_

 

_‘_ _You’re_ _the one with the private tutors and superior education. We should have forced fed Snape his own dammed potion. He’s a greasy bastard, but he’s also a greasy all-knowing bastard.’_

 

_They begun the steep descent from the rocky asphalt of Pluto’s castle . Even with the rough-hewed steps winding around , the descent was slow, and Harry’s temper grew short as he listened to Draco muttering to himself._

 

_‘Hlusion, helusion, illusion, illisyum-‘_

 

_‘What are you on about now?’ Harry grunted irritably at him._

 

_Draco ignored him. ‘Illusium, helusium, aelusium…’_

 

_And so it went, until a particularly rocky step-_

 

_‘Elysium!!!’ the shriek of triumph behind him almost deafened Harry. ‘Pedion Hlusion is the Elysium Fields!!!’_

 

_‘I’ll take your word for it,’ the dark-haired man grunted. ‘Try not to get us killed.’_

 

_‘There’s gratefulness for you,’ his companion huffed. ‘We would have been walking in circles if it hasn’t been for my-‘_

 

_‘We don’t know for certain if your father is in the Elysium Fields,’ Harry snapped. ‘and the notion is far fetched, considering the type of person he was on Earth.’_

 

_‘Don’t you_ _dare_ _breath a word about my father-‘_

 

_‘I_ _hated_ _Lucius,’ Harry almost shouted. ‘I always have. Which part of the word_ _hate_ _do you not understand, Draco?’_

 

_The blond actually looked stunned at his outburst, which in turn shocked Harry himself._

 

_‘You’re Harry Potter,’ Draco pointed out as if it was it the most elemental of things. ‘You’re not supposed to hate_ _anything_ _.’_

 

_‘By now, Draco, I hate_ _most_ _things. Especially if they don’t leave me_ _alone_ _.’_

 

_They stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. To his surprised, Draco looked away first._

 

_‘Fine. I can see now that you’re no hero.’_

 

‘I’m not,’ Harry said, trying to sound defiant and failing miserably to his own ears. ‘I never was.’

 

‘My mistake, then,’ Draco said with cold politeness, and resumed his descent.

 

Seething with helplessness, resentment and guilt, Harry reluctantly followed.

 

*

 

At the bottom of the cliff, they found sheep. Lots of fat, wooly back-faced sheep.

 

Whole heards of sheep- moving like groups of slow, ponderous charcoal-coloured clouds over the rolling hills.

 

‘It’s like being in a negroid version of new Zealand,’ Draco observed sourly.

 

‘Lamb steak must be cheap here,’ Harry commented nervously, his pleading gaze on Draco. The blond did not reply, nor cracked a smile. With a sigh, Harry continued trailing behind the almost military click of dragonhide boots.

 

They followed the path, laid in pale blue slabs which lead them gently past a clearing of trees- the species of which Harry was sure he’d never find on earth. Monkeys chittered at them, sporting white, heart-shaped faces and scale-flecked emerald wings.

 

The walking went on for hours, until they both wearied of the strange landscape, which seemed to grow oppressive and threatening. Everytime Harry opened his mouth to ask Draco -who was now holding on to their ‘point me’ pocket watch- if he actually knew where he was going, his courage failed him.

 

‘Yea, you’re such a hero, all right,’ he berated himself. ‘Heroically chicken-shit.’

 

Soon it begun to rain. It started as a fine, misty rain that gave everything around them a smoky, ethereal glow that made Harry smile at first…and then rapidly turned sour as the fine drizzle became a steady hammer of tiny missiles, going in every direction thanks to the capricious wind. The road became muddy and slick, and Draco became more and more waspish and short tempered.

 

It was all in all, Harry though, an adequate reflection of the story of his life.

 

And just when it couldn’t get any worse, the terrible countenance of the albino child-god Hypnos appeared before them. A small doe lay dead at his feet amongst a scatter of red petals, or perhaps it was blood, the dark-haired man couldn’t discern.

 

‘Get behind me,’ Harry barked. Grimly he drew his Gryffindor’s sword, as Draco scurried behind him.

 

*

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

11  
  
‘Er, the dear was delicious,’ Harry said awkwardly as they sat around the supernaturally crimson fire that Hypnos had the conjured. ‘Thank you.’ 

‘Tis unseemly for Gods to make offerings to mortals and not the other way around,’ Hypnos announced unhappily, twirling one of his poppy stalks around in an almost anxious gesture. ‘Mine brother Thánatos, did urge me to do this unnatural deed which all Godhood doth balk against, and I have consented, out of the great affection I bear him.’ 

‘We’re most indebted for his and your help.’ Harry said gratefully.  

‘Thánatos is gentle of disposition despite of the dreadful nature of his work.’ Hynos said this with some resignation, as if his brother’s compassion was some incurable flaw. ‘Thus he hath bid me deliver the warnings of the hourglass, and of thy challenges ahead, hardships much unsuited to thy soft bodies.’ 

Harry swallowed audibly and had to force his next words out. ‘Can you help us find Lucius?’  

Beside him, Draco was making small noises of distress. Only Grand Uncle was unaffected by Hypno’s veiled warning and continued to stare longingly at the roasted venison he could no longer eat.  

‘Nay, for the Gods are forbidden direct interference with mortals. It hath always been so. As long as ye art not yet dead, to openly hinder or lead aid to your quest wouldst cast doubt on our fragile treaties with the Others.’ 

‘Who are the ‘Others’ that you refer to?’ 

The child God’s face became even more forbidding, if that was possible. ‘That I may not reveal to a mere mortal.’ 

 _Gods then_ , Draco mouthed at him, and Harry suppressed a sigh. Apparently death itself was not enough to escape the jaws of political machinations. Perhaps Voldemort had a point in not wanting to die after all.

‘Ah, mine brother corrects me.‘ Hypnos’ expression suddenly shifted gaze turned inward, as Harry had seen his twin do at the caverns of Avernus. ‘-He bids me remember that certain  _allowances_ … hath always been made for heroes.’ The god scowled. ‘Which amongst ye  _dares_  to assume this immortal label?’ 

‘Er-’ Harry said helplessly as two fingers, one of which was made of ectoplasm, pointed speedily in his direction.  

Hypnos stared at him though his seemingly sightless eyes, and Harry resisted the urge to squirm. ‘Wrought as it may seem to be, it has always been the destiny of heroes to traverse on such roads that doth lead thee to places both wondrous and grievous.’ 

‘Am not anybody’s  _hero_ ,’ Harry finally found the courage to refute. He was sick to death of that goddamn title, and terrified of the thought that there may be no escape after death as well. 

‘Thy feelings are of no consequence. Only thy fate, and what you choose to make of it is of interest to us,’ Hypnos told him clinically as he drew a poppy flower out of the empty air. A gentle stroke of his white hands had the stalk revolving into a blur, then turning into a red bottle, suspended in the air. ‘This is my reluctant gift to you,  _hero_. Waste a single seed, and I shall know of it and bring my wrath to bear upon you both.’

Draco’s eyes bulged as he snatched the scarlet bottle from the air. ‘Thank you very much, your lordship. Much obliged. What should we do with the bottle when we’re done?’

‘Ye may do as your customs dictate,’ Hypnos shrugged as he disappeared. ‘Farewell.’

Harry expelled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. ‘If I never meet that creepy, no-eyeball albino again till kingdom comes, it would still be too soon.’ 

Draco, had not spoken a word for the entire duration, collapsed into a heap on the ground. ‘ _Christian_ ,’ he gasped. ‘I want to be a  _Christian_  when I die.’ 

‘Why Draco, whatever happened to those vaulted pureblood principles?’ 

‘Screw principles. I make my purchases with money, not pain.’

‘Not if Pluto has his way,’ Harry grimly reminded him. ‘Merlin, who’d have thought that the afterlife would be almost exactly like earth. So much a well deserved rest.’ He paused whilst untying his bedroll. ‘‘What dreadful work of his brother’s was Hypnos talking about earlier?’ 

‘Why Thánatos? He’s God of the Dead.’  

‘ _What?_  Why didn’t you tell me? 

‘I thought you knew!’ Draco cried, looking equally bewildered. ‘It was in First Year Syllabus, Harry!’ 

‘I’d have thought Pluto-‘ Harry scratched his head. ‘Nevermind.’ 

‘Pluto is the administrative aspect of the Underworld. He’s king, but a large part of that is because Zeus is his brother,’ Draco explained with uncharacteristic patience; perhaps he felt that they might live longer if Harry became better acquainted with his Greek mythos. ‘I don’t think God of Death carries as much weight here as, oh, brother to the King of Gods.’ 

‘Cronyism?’ Harry scoffed, ‘How sordid.’

Draco however, simply looked speculative. ‘Do you ever notice that we only see Thánatos or Hypnos singularly, but never together? For such a loving pair, they don’t seem to hang out much.’ 

 _‘Don’t_  go there, Draco’ 

‘It’s worth giving a thought to,’ Draco mused as they both stared at the constantly changing sky. ‘I mean they’re gods after all. It’s possible for them to be two places at a time. Or even two persons.’  

‘I don’t want to know,’ Harry shuddered. The very thought screwed with his brains, and his idea of logic had become untenable since the whole sorry things had started.  

He pointedly turned his back on Draco and squeezed his eyes shut. Perhaps he’d wake up tomorrow morning in his own gratifyingly smelly bed and find the whole thing had been a dream. 

But then, Harry knew he’d never been particularly lucky with wistful thoughts.  

*   
   
  



	12. Chapter 12

 

12   
 

Morning found both intrepid adventurers huddled miserably under some thick ferns. The temperature had dropped substantially during the course of the night, causing Draco to scramble under Harry’s blanket, shortly taking it over completely.  

Then, after the wind had blew itself out, it begun to rain again.  

‘This is fast growing old,’ Draco grunted as he straightened stiff, damp joints, and Harry bit back his half-dozen retorts about the whole sorry thing not being his business in the first place.  

‘Let’s get going,’ he said wearily instead. Sir Dead Uncle gave Harry a commiserating look, which he ignored. 

‘Gladly.’ Draco took out the bag out seeds that Hypnos has left them and sprinkled a handful on the ground. They waited expeactantly.  

After a few moments, a green stalk pushed itself out of the ground, growing before Harry’s amazed eyes at a pace no wizarding magic could have granted. It bloomed into a flower, and shortly released more seeds onto the ground. In seconds, they were surrounded by a circle of poppies. 

‘Wow,’ Draco said, stupefied out of his usual eloquence.  

They watched as a single stalk of poppy breached the perfect circle they found themselves standing on and started growing in a thin line towards the east. 

‘That’s our guide,’ Harry picked up his knapsack. ‘Let’s go.’ 

They followed the scarlet blooms, which set a punishing pace. ‘I swear, that Hypnos is a bit of a sadist,’ Draco panted tetchily after an hour of chasing the speeding red swath.  

Harry was too winded to reply; only Draco’s undead uncle showed no sign of tiring and grinned at them irascibly.  

The trail seemed to go on forever. Twice they lost it when it went though a swarm of black sheep, and Harry had been in an absolute panic that the stupid beasts may have found their supernatural arrow a palatable lunch and ate it.  

Wadding against a black tide of bleating, smelly,  _stupid_  ungulates had not been fun.  

Finally the line of poppies crested a hill and ceased to grow, and they found themselves overlooking a valley with a tiny village nestled against it.   

With a sigh of relief, Harry dropped like a rock on the grass. Draco followed suit, lacking his usual grace. 

‘Well. That was rather invigorating,’ the blond said mildly after they had both stopped gasping from the exertion. 

‘We’re no spring chickens anymore.’ Harry agreed just as mildly. 

‘I think I’ll join a gym when we get back home.’ 

‘I think I’ll join you in joining that gym. Were we ever so fit in school?’ 

They both thought about it and simultaneously said ‘ _Quidditch’_ ,

‘Why did you stop playing anyways,’ Draco grunted. ‘You used to fly circles around me.’ 

‘Too much breaches and leather.’ Harry looked sheepish. ‘Communal showers with boy soaping boy,  

‘Why, Potter, you kinkylittle bast-  _wait_. You gave up the Quidditch cup because of  _denial_  issues?’  

Harry scowled. ‘I was confused.’ 

Draco thrilled with laughter. ‘Potter, you are  _such_  a coward. Gryffindor would have won the final year house cup if not for you. Does you loyal sheep-mates know to what extent you betrayed the spirit of your House-‘ 

‘Shut up,’

‘You know, I always wondered why we ended up together,’ Draco mused, sitting up with his legs crossed. ‘The great hero Harry Potter, going out with Draco Malfoy, flamboyant and undisputed queen of queerdom.’ 

The dark haired man blinked for a while, trying to digest this. ‘What rubbish,’ he finally said somewhat feebly, for lack of a better comeback. 

Draco’s reply was slow in coming, and uncharacteristically calm. ‘You didn’t think anybody else deserved such a fate, did you?’  

Harry stared at the back of the fair head, his heart beating painfully. He wished Draco could turn around and see the apology in his eyes. He wished he had the guts to admit that his whole life had been nothing more than a collection of cowardice.  

Draco got to his feet, and when he spoke again, his voice was slightly unsteady, his demeanor deceptively placid. ‘You were too ashamed to impose your queerness on somebody you actually respected. And in your bitter world of self-censure, you thought I didn’t deserve any better than to be stuck with you.’ 

Harry felt his heart break. The lump in his throat became unbearably painful, almost rock-like, and he remained mute, struck dumb by guilt and sadness.  

‘I was your self-inflicted punishment.’ Draco said, sounding almost matter of fact as he retrieved his knapsack. His voice softened, acquired a nostalgic edge. ‘If it’s any consolation, you were good enough for me, Potter. From the first time I saw you at Madam Malkin’s you were more than good enough for me.’ 

Harry choked. He had never hated himself more, but still he could not speak. 

‘Its getting dark,’ Draco said to nobody, and trotted off towards the village, followed by his uncle’s ghost. 

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry whispered alone, to the rapidly chilling air. ‘I’m so sorry. So sorry.’ 

He waited a moment, wiped the tears from his eyes, and followed suit.  

*


	13. Chapter 13

 

13 

 

For all the expansive land around them, the buildings in the village were huddled tightly against each other, and the blue-cobbled streets were very narrow. The villagers themselves were all young, upper middle-aged men and women that came seemingly from a large variety of mixed races, and they all wore the same, simple pheasant tunic that may have been in fashion during the middle ages.

Harry discerned that the day was winding down for them, as the women were scurrying around with the day’s shopping and some of the shops seemed to be closing. Harry approved of the place in general, for it had a wholesome and uncomplicated look about it. Solid woods and plain linens were everywhere, and shades of green seemed to be the predominately preferred color. 

They stopped one of the hurrying villagers, a man who looked to be in his thirties, with a black, close cropped beard and a leather chullo covering the sides of his face.

‘Good evening, we’re looking for a man who goes by the name of Lucius Malfoy-‘

‘We’re also looking for  _food_ ,’ Draco interrupted.

Harry clamped a hand on his wrist and pulled him firmly away from the villager’s suspicious gaze. ‘We think he might be staying in his village,’ he continued politely.

‘We seldom go by names here,’ the villager confessed. ‘Nobody remembers their own names after a period, you know.’

‘Ah,’ Harry acknowledged. ‘That might be a problem then. The man we’re looking for is rather elderly; quite tall, long blond hair & blue eyes…’ he barely refrained from adding ‘quite a bastard’ to his description. ‘He’s been in Hades just over a year now.’

The villager scratched his short beard. ‘The only man fitting your description is the onion and squash farmer, lives about a league away. Looks no older than meself, though. Tall fella, hair like wheat, but he smells like a giant onion on legs.’

‘That’s not him then,’ Harry said, spirits deflating. ‘Maybe you can point us to some food instead. We haven’t any money, but perhaps you know somebody we could barter with.’

‘Depends on what you’ve got; markets at the main square,’ the villager pointed at the bustling road. ‘Just follow all the way.’

‘Our thanks,’ Harry said. ‘Lets go.’

‘But I’m famished,’ Draco groaned.

‘We need money before we can buy food, so  _march_.’

Draco sighed and followed Harry down the market road, gazing mournfully at the cafes and restaurants they passed. They made their way past the main street, with its rows of simple shops – identical in their preference of solid wooden counters and sensible shelves.

‘This place is in dire need of an overhaul,’ Draco said distastefully as they moved along. ‘It looks about two millennia out of date.’

‘Hades is an old place,’ Harry defended, thinking he could really get used to a place like this. He decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

The market square was quite a bit larger than Harry expected, given the size of the village, and still noisy with the din of moving goods and haggling tradesmen. The square was crammed with a colorful assortment of tents, carriage-stalls and caravans, some modest, some grand, and there was one brocaded dome that was so ostentatious as to be ridiculous. The costumes worn by both peddlers and buyers were also a lot more riotous here, although there were many of the plainly-garbed villagers as well. Harry found sudden chaos was quite overwhelming after the orderly calm from the previous streets- all in all, the market reminded him of a very noisy parakeet cage.

They wandered warily thorough the throng. Draco seemed to have forgotten his hunger in this enthusiasm to explore the colorful scene before him, and Harry had to slap the blond away quite a few times. ‘ _Don’t_  touch anything until we get our hands on some money,’ he hissed.

Draco simply growled at him- with his stomach. Harry rolled his eyes at his companion and pushed ahead, mostly to hide his own worry.

They found themselves coming upon an armorer’s tent, manned by a smith with corded muscles that wrapped around his arms and shoulders like snakes the man has swallowed whole.

‘We’re looking for money – in exchange for work or trade.’  

The smithy looked Harry up and down incredeusely. ‘Scrawny likes of ye wont do me any favours. That dagger ‘ere, however, looks plenty nice.’

Harry looked in dismay at the shrunken sword of Gryffindor on his hip. ‘It’s not for sale.’

The smithy shrugged and turned back to his hamering. ‘Suit yerself.’

‘But I’m  _hungry_ ,’ Draco mourned, staring at him with anguished expectancy. ‘We need food, Harry.’

Harry stared helplessly at him, fingers clenched over the cool metal of Gryffindor’s sword with his conversation on the hill with his blond ex-beau playing in his mind. The Sword of Gryffindor, legacy of its most famous founder.

On  _loan,_ because he was Harry Potter.

But the founder of Gryffindor was dead, and Draco was alive. And Draco was hungry.

Harry pointed at the smithy’s most prized possession, a scimitar displayed in a pride position in the center of the tent. ‘How much for that sword?’

The smithy raised and eyebrow. ‘Yer wana trade?’

‘How much?’

‘One hundred and sixty gold pieces. A trifle, for me finest work!’ the smithy boasted.

Harry removed his ‘dagger’ and held it out, where it begun to lengthened and grow into a sword before the smithy’s widening eyes and the awe of the customers around him.

‘ _Three hundred_  gold pieces for this sword,’ he said steadily.

‘Tis a fine magic,’ the smithy said craftily, playing to the crowd of curious onlookers that had started to gather around the tent, ‘but its not unique. I’ve give you ninety  _good_  gold pieces for that.’

‘ _Two hundred and sixty_  gold pieces,’ Harry pressed. He didn’t notice the wily blond bastard slip away

The hammer smith glowered at Harry. ‘Two hundred and ten, and not a farthing more.’

Choking back the sense of loss that had dropped like a stone on his gut, Harry opened his mouth to accept-

 -and almost fell over when a scream ripped through the marketplace, drawing a startled mummer through the crowd. Harry grabbed Griffindor’s sword and ran out of the tent, ignoring the smithy’s angry cries and pushing desperately through the crowd, trying to locate the source of Draco’s distress.

He followed the mindless shriek down a peddlers lane of earthly produce, the smell of onions and assorted vegetables assaulting his nostrils until he came upon a blond head and shook him hard for giving him such a scare.

‘What the fuck sake’s the matter with you?’ Harry shouted.   

Draco shook his head violently, all colour gone from his face, and merely pointed at something in front of him. ‘Father,’ he whispered in a shaky voice.

Harry’s startled gaze followed, and his jaw dropped open in shock.  _‘Lucius?’_

Whatever unpleasant surprise that Harry had been thinking of, he wasn’t prepared for  _this._

[FINI - Phastasmagoria! Part One]


End file.
